


Safe House

by elaiel



Series: The Other Man [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Caretaking, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27489778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaiel/pseuds/elaiel
Summary: “T-shirt and jeans.” Bucky said. “T-shirt and jeans works in almost any country. Since about 1970.”That statement jolted Sirius out of his frozen state.“How old are you?” He asked Bucky.Bucky looked at him and frowned. “I don’t know.” He finally admitted. “What year is it?”
Series: The Other Man [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771291
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

They spent the remainder of the day resting. Bucky woke violently from nightmares a couple of times, bolting upright and once leaping to his feet. It wasn’t clear to Sirius whether Bucky actually recognised him or not when he woke and Sirius wasn’t going to risk going anywhere near him, even as a dog. However, his dog form was obviously not threatening and after a while of staring around, Bucky simply lay down and went to sleep again. 

After it was dark, Bucky disappeared again and came back with two more rabbits and his pockets full of some kind of roots and greens. The rabbits were stuffed with the peeled roots and greens and wrapped thickly in bundles of long green grass. Sirius had managed to turn back into a man again, and watched with interest as Bucky pushed most of the logs and coals sideways with his metal hand to expose the ground beneath, then buried the rabbits shallowly and rebuilt the fire over the top. 

“Cooked in a few hours,” Bucky told him.

“That’s amazing,” Sirius said.

Bucky shrugged. “Coming from the man who can turn into a dog.”

Sirius leaned back against the tree and let himself sleep again.

His own nightmares woke him. It was hard to tell how long he had been asleep, but it must have been a while as there were new logs on the fire. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and the sweat from his face and scowled as his fingers caught in the tangle of hair that fell down over his face.

He pushed his hair back and scratched at his scalp. “How sharp is your rock?” 

“Sharp enough to cut flesh. Why?”

“My hair’s too long and it’s tangled,” he said, trying to pull the end of a matted chunk of hair apart. 

“I can hack it off,” Bucky offered, “but you should leave it long enough to cut it neatly once we get some scissors.”

Sirius looked up at Bucky in surprise. “Scissors?” He asked.

Bucky frowned a little. “I’m…” He stopped. “We don’t need to live out here forever,” he said finally. “I think.” He stopped again. “I think I’m remembering how to...live,” he concluded. 

He moved over and crouched behind Sirius, picking up the mats of Sirius’ hair in his metal hand before sawing at them with the flint blade somewhere around the level of Sirius' shoulders. It took a number of cuts, but finally Sirius felt them come away. A few more cuts and the front of his hair was cut roughly level as well. Bucky came back around him and dropped the fetid tangles of hair on the fire. For a few seconds there was the smell of burning hair, before they crisped up and the flames took them.

“Thanks,” Sirius said, starting to pick the new ends of his hair apart.

Bucky sat back down on the other side of the fire, staring into the flames.

Sirius had untangled about half of his hair before Bucky spoke again.

“Where are you going?”

“What?” Sirius dropped a handful of loose hair into the fire, watching as it sizzled up and disappeared. 

“You’re going somewhere,” Bucky said, “you talk in your sleep, about killing someone, that you gotta find someone.”

Sirius looked up at Bucky. “I need to catch a rat.” His face softened into a small smile. “And protect my godson Harry.”

Bucky frowned. “A real rat?”

Sirius snorted. “A wizard, who can turn into a rat. Peter Pettigrew.”

Bucky nodded thoughtfully. “Why?

“He was responsible for the death of Harry’s parents,” Sirius explained, “my best friend and his wife.” He growled out loud. “Then faked his own death and framed me for the murders.”

Bucky just nodded. After a few minutes he spoke again. “Where is the rat?”

“He’s pretending to be a pet with a wizarding family, the Weasleys, I saw them in a newspaper a few days ago.”

“Where is Harry?”

Sirius sighed. “I don’t know. In theory, he should have come to me, or if not me then the Longbottoms, but they aren’t...able.” He thought for a moment. “He’s not with the Weasleys. They were members as well…”

“How do you know?” Bucky asked. 

“Harry wasn’t in the photo in the newspaper, and the paper said Ron was a friend of Harry’s.”

“Who else could have Harry?” Bucky poked the fire. 

“I guess…” A horrible thought occurred to Sirius. “Maybe his aunt, Lily’s sister, but she hated everything magic and James, Harry’s dad. Really hated him.”

Bucky looked up at Sirius’ words, obviously picking up on his tone of voice. “That would be bad?”

Sirius shrugged. “I don’t know. Possibly. They aren’t magical.”

“Do you know her name?” 

“Petunia Dursley.”

“Address?”

“It _was_ 4 Privet Close, Little Whinging, Surrey.”

Bucky nodded. “I can find her.”

xxxoooxxx

“You need to turn into a dog.” As usual, Bucky’s statement came out of nowhere.

“Why?” Sirius asked, looking over to where Bucky sat with his back to the fire, staring out into the darkness.

“We need supplies.”

Sirius stood, grabbing at the nearest tree as his balance failed him and the world spun a little. One-handed, he tossed what little chewed bones remained of his roast rabbit into the undergrowth for the wildlife. “Where are we getting supplies from?”

“Depends,” Bucky said, “we need clothes. I need your shirt and coat. You can be a dog.”

Sirius shrugged and leaned against the tree to take off the striped prisoner shirt and ragged coat. Bucky was several sizes larger than him, but the oversized garments were big enough to cover him, and as Bucky’s metal arm disappeared under the tattered coat, he understood. Bucky started to pick up the small amount of possessions they had, the flint knives and drawstring rabbit snares and put them in the pockets.

“When I’m a dog, I answer to Padfoot,” he told Bucky and changed into the dog.

He waited as Bucky carefully extinguished the fire covering it with dirt and followed him, out of the fields and onto a farm track. They walked through maybe a mile or more of country lanes before they passed a farm. Sirius waited as Bucky slipped in and scouted around for a few minutes before they moved on again and a few hundred metres later, walked out onto a relatively major road. 

The land here was low rolling hills, open and covered in fields of crops. They walked down the grass verge alongside the dual carriageway and despite the moonlight, he was glad of his dog’s sense of smell and better quality night vision in navigating the tussocks of grass and occasional bushes and roots. Bucky seemed to have little problem either. 

Despite the size of the road, very few cars or larger vehicles were passing them this time of night. Only at one point did Bucky take them both off the road and into a field, when a car with flashing blue lights appeared in the distance. Sirius remembered the blue lights being the sign of muggle aurors, and kept his head down behind the bush until Bucky was willing to move out onto the road again.

The road eventually took them to a point where smaller roads branched off on either side and a large bridge passed over and they walked off onto smaller roads again. There were large signposts showing that this side road would eventually lead them into Sunderland. Sirius had a fairly good idea of where they were now, in general terms at least, and it was a very long way away from anywhere he needed to be.

They walked cautiously along the deserted roads, getting progressively further into what was clearly a muggle city, before Bucky took them off the main road and into the large car park of what Sirius thought was called a super market. The car park was almost empty of cars, but at the edge of the large paved area were a number of large metal containers. 

Sirius could smell that several of them contained metal and probably glass containers that had contained food and drink, but the one in front of which Bucky stopped smelled of people and clothes. He squinted at the container, the area was well lit with the yellowish muggle street lights, but his dog vision was less helpful for reading text in any light. 

Putting his paws up on the side to get his nose closer to the text, he was able to read “ _Salvation Army Clothing Bank. Donations…”_ His claws slipped on the smooth metal side, he skidded back down and wasn’t able to read anymore. He could see however, that the container had a reasonably large hatch in the side, quite high up. 

He yelped as Bucky picked him up and opened the hatch, angling his nose towards the entrance. He thrashed a moment until Bucky muttered.

“I can rip it open with my hand, but it’ll be less obvious if you get in and pass stuff out.”

Sirius gave up and pushed his paws forward, allowing himself to be fed into the container, glad he was a long limbed dog, not a stocky breed. 

The container was about two thirds full of clothes and shoes. Sirius could not quite fully stand up in dog form, and certainly would not be able to change back. He began to dig through the clothes with his paws, letting his nose lead him to several pairs of shoes which had belonged to males, which he dropped into the hatch for Bucky to retrieve. 

Several items of clothes, coats, jeans and some random items which smelled like they were made of real wool followed, alongside several things he was pretty certain were coats, bags and padded bedding. When he was done, he wriggled partially out of the hatch and let Bucky draw him out by his front paws. 

There was quite a pile on the floor and Bucky had obviously been pre-sorting the items as, as soon as he put Sirius down on the floor he dumped a large bundle straight back in. The rest he made into a bundle stuffed into one of the padded bedding items which Sirius now realised was a sleeping bag and tied the end closed with a belt. Bucky shouldered the almost full sleeping bag, looked at Sirius and walked off.

They found a set of small vegetable gardens without houses, behind a wire mesh fence and gate. There was a large official looking sign, but it was at human eye height and Sirius didn’t even bother trying to read it before Bucky lifted him over the fence. He kept watch over the bundle, hidden out of sight of the road behind a shed, as Bucky raided several of the small gardens, filling his pockets with a small amount of vegetables from each area. 

At the back of the gardens out of sight of the entrance was an open area with a water tap and a couple of benches. Sirius turned back into a man. Immediately he stood he realised he was not feeling good. The world spun around him and it took him several long seconds for him to stabilise himself, leaning heavily on a bench. By the time he had managed to sit down on the bench next to the tap, Bucky had returned. Sirius took the opportunity to slowly wash his face and upper body in the cold but very clean water from the tap and have a long drink. While Bucky repeated his actions, Sirius took the bundle and started to lay clothes out over the bench next to him and check if any of the shoes fit. 

Most of the clothes looked odd to Sirius, very muggle and beyond looking to see if they fit, he realised he was just standing staring at them. Bucky came up behind him.

“I don’t know what to wear,” he admitted. 

Bucky shrugged. 

“What’s even normal?” Sirius asked. 

“T-shirt and jeans,” Bucky said, “T-shirt and jeans works in almost any country. Since about 1970.”

That statement jolted Sirius out of his frozen state.

“How old are you?” He asked Bucky.

Bucky looked at him and frowned. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted, “what year is it?”

“1993. I thought you were younger than me,” Sirius added.

“I can remember…” Bucky trailed off. “I can remember a mission…” He shook his head roughly. “I’m older,” he said, “older than…” He blinked his eyes hard a couple of time. “I think they froze me, put me to sleep. I’m...old.”

Sirius peered at him, then just nodded. He changed the subject. “T-shirt and jeans then.” 

Bucky appeared to refocus and looked at the clothes that were approximating Sirius size. “These.” He picked out several t-shirts and a couple of plaid shirts. “You can wear the shirts over the t-shirts and also a sweater.” He added two sweaters to the pile. “And this coat.” A heavily padded coat in slightly shiny fabric was added to the pile in front of Sirius. 

Sirius stripped off his ragged trousers and stood. Once again he was stuck by dizziness and Bucky grabbed him before he fell. 

“You don’t look so good,” Bucky said. 

“I felt a lot better as a dog,” Sirius admitted. 

Hanging onto Bucky, he managed to kick off his ragged trousers and sat down heavily. Slowly and shivering, he washed his lower body with a torn scrap of his old trousers, but when it came to dressing, he couldn’t stand again. With a very concerned look, Bucky lifted him and dressed him in the muggle clothes he had indicated, then himself stripped, washed and dressed. He kept his old boots, but changed his trousers and Sirius’ tattered shirt and jacket for t-shirt, plaid shirt and jeans, and a coat somewhat less padded than Sirius, topping it off with a cap with a peak at the front.

The remainder of the new clothes and the sleeping bags they divided between two large bags with unfamiliar logos on the side. The bags both had long shoulder straps, but Bucky ignored these and pushed his arms through the shorter handles on either side of one to wear the bag like a rucksack. Sirius looked at the other bag, wishing he had a wand to shrink the bag, but Bucky growled at him and picked it up.

They found and slept in an abandoned shed for the whole of the day. Once dark had fallen, Bucky pushed Sirius to become Padfoot again and they walked through the night, cross country but keeping parallel to the road from earlier until Padfoot collapsed, unable to walk any further. Bucky looked down at him, then picked him up with his free hand, threw him over his shoulder and kept walking. He growled a complaint weakly, but Bucky ignored him and finally he dozed, too tired to do anything else about it. 

He woke when Bucky put him down, peering around at the wood they were hiding in, barely lit in the grey misty light of the gathering dawn. With Bucky’s help, he got himself into a sleeping bag and slept again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bucky peered at him. “You look pretty beat,” he said, “worse than earlier.”_   
>  _He felt pretty awful as well and just blinked at Bucky._   
>  _“Okay,” Bucky told him, “get some sleep, I gotta think.”_

He woke to the smell of cooking meat again. Bucky was sitting opposite him, with some kind of bird cooking on a spit made of sticks over a small fire. 

He gave in enquiring whine. 

“Chicken,” Bucky said, “figured the farmer wouldn’t miss one.”

He thought the farmer probably would miss the chicken, but he found he didn’t really care. Too tired to change back to a man, he laid his head back down on his paws and waited. There were also roots of some kind cooking in the embers of the fire and within a short while he was eating cooked chicken and baked roots. 

Having eaten, he was still completely exhausted. 

Bucky peered at him. “You look pretty beat,” he said, “worse than earlier.”

He felt pretty awful as well and just blinked at Bucky. 

“Okay,” Bucky told him, “get some sleep, I gotta think.”

They made slow going the next night, but Bucky seemed to have an idea of where he was going, finally slipping into a big car park next to the big muggle road. There was a large building which seemed to be full of shops. Around the side of the building were public toilets with outside access and he let Bucky take him into a larger toilet cubicle with it’s own sink, where Bucky was able to wash himself, wipe Padfoot down with a wet rag and they both drank from the tap.

Bucky left him lying by a bench outside ostensibly guarding the bags, before coming back a short while later with suspiciously full pockets. With Bucky virtually holding Padfoot up by the scruff, they made their way to an area full of large lorries and somehow Bucky was able to get them inside the back of one of them. 

Sitting in the dark, he pulled a bottle out of his pocket. “Can you turn back?” Bucky asked. “I don’ know much about veterinary medicine, but I got something for you as a human.”

Padfoot concentrated and slowly, painfully, slid back into human form.

Bucky pulled him up to a sitting position and held the bottle to his lips. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” Sirius rasped.

“Rehydration fluids.” 

Sirius gave up trying to understand and sipped at the liquid. It tasted foul, vaguely lemony but chemical. When he began to struggle to keep his eyes open, Bucky took the bottle away and he dozed. He drifted into consciousness some undefined time later, realising the vehicle was moving. Bucky helped him drink more of the disgusting liquid and he slept again. 

He woke to Bucky shaking him. 

“Huh?”

“Shh!” Bucky was lifting the bags. “We gotta get out.”

Sirius realised he felt slightly less appalling than he had earlier. Next to him, Bucky was cutting through some kind of rope, opening a gap at the base of the fabric side of the truck. He slid it open a crack, listening hard before dropping their bags out and helping Sirius slide down. 

They had climbed out into another car park, but this one looked to be an actual destination for the lorry, and staff were approaching the back of the lorry as they slipped around the front and away. It was still dark, but this parking area was better lit than the last one and they needed to move cautiously from shadow to shadow to avoid being seen, despite Sirius needing to lean heavily on Bucky. They finally reached the road and walked away as casually as possible for one man virtually carrying another. 

Once they were out of sight of the car park, Bucky pulled out another bottle that was labelled as “spring water” but smelled of the disgusting drink from earlier. Sirius sighed, allowed Bucky to sit him on a wall and with help drank his way through the bottle before they set slowly off again. Bucky appeared to be reading road signs as they walked and eventually turned them off into a series of side roads and a small muggle housing estate which backed onto fields.

“Where are we?” Sirius asked as they slipped down the side of a house. 

“Hydra safe house,” Bucky answered, “and if I’m remembering right, it’s got a cache of supplies.”

Sirius sat on a plastic garden chair as Bucky scouted the area, coming back with a garden spade. 

He inserted the blade of the spade into the crack between the back door and the lintel and gave it a short shove. The wood around the lock splintered. Sirius was very aware of the noise, which seemed very loud in the semi-darkness of the early dawn and listened intently for any reaction from the neighbouring houses. Nothing happened, no movement, no lights coming on. Bucky pushed the door open and walked in. 

The house was a smallish detached house on an estate of very similar and generic looking muggle houses. The back door opened into a kitchen with a pine kitchen table and chairs and a lot of white muggle kitchen equipment. Bucky ignored the kitchen and walked straight through into the hallway, Sirius following slowly.

In the hall there was a large heap of free newspapers, leaflets and post inside the front door. Bucky made a beeline for them, looking at the most recent then digging to the bottom of the pile to look at the earliest.

“Why is there no-one here?” Sirius asked. 

“It’ll be infrequently occupied,” Bucky said, checking in the other two downstairs rooms and making for the stairs, “only enough to stop suspicion. It’ll be let out on short term lets, or the ‘owner’ will be in a care home, or it belongs to a person who ‘travels for business’ or something.”

Sirius followed Bucky up the stairs slowly, stopping halfway, his energy beginning to flag again. Bucky appeared to know where he was going and stopped on the upstairs landing. Sirius rounded the top of the stairs and leaned heavily against the bannister. Bucky looked up at the hatch which apparently led into the attic space, then glanced down at the bannister protecting the stairwell. 

In one swift move, he had leapt up, pushing off with his right foot from the bannister rail and punching the loft hatch with his metal hand, right next to the padlock that was holding it closed. With a couple of loud thuds, the hatch flew open and landed somewhere in the darkness of the loft. The bannister rail shuddered with the impact and Sirius had to grab at it to stop himself falling.

Bucky jumped up and grabbed the edge of the hatch with both hands, pulling himself up and into the loft. His face appeared in the opening and he reached a hand towards Sirius.

“Want a hand up?”

Sirius chuckled weakly, took the hand and was hauled up one handed by Bucky. Sirius was beginning to get used to his new friend’s strength, but it was still pretty surprising the speed he was lifted and his vision tunnelled again for a moment. Inside the attic, Bucky reached out to one of the horizontal joists and clicked on a switch. Over their heads a bare lightbulb lit up, showing surplus furniture, general junk and a row of metal crates along the end wall. Sirius sank to the floorboards and sat, leaning heavily against a box.

“Supplies,” Bucky said, walking over to them, “won’t have any of the good stuff, just basics.”

Bucky reached down with his metal hand and casually snapped the metal padlock holding it closed then opened the crate. Unable to stand, Sirius scooted himself closer, to see that the crate contained muggle weapons, guns and other equipment which probably went with them. He watched Bucky lift the top tray out of the crate to expose another tray filled with cardboard boxes of ammunition. 

The next crate held more weapons. The third crate held packages Bucky said were long lasting food. The fourth crate held clothes and camping supplies. The fifth crate held a large quantity of medical supplies plus a small box of paperwork and supplies Bucky said were for making identification documents. The sixth crate held more clothes and a large quantity of muggle paper money. The seventh crate finally held some electronic equipment. 

Sirius waited as Bucky stared at the content of the crate, a puzzled look on his face. 

“What is it?” Sirius asked him, putting a hand up to steady himself on the side of the box.

“These,”Bucky paused, “there should be more here. There should be more...technical equipment.”

“What kind of technical equipment?”

“Surveillance gear, bugs, computers, a secure internet connection. This gear,” Bucky said, still looking at the contents of the crate, “is not right.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Sirius asked.

“It’s not...good.” Bucky said. “It’s not up to date.” He looked back at Sirius. “Even the tactical gear is out of date.”

Sirius shrugged weakly. “I’m a wizard who’s spent the last ten years in prison. I’m not even sure what a computer looks like.”

Sirius watched as Bucky began to pack some of the clothes, camping supplies and food in a pair of rucksacks. Bags packed, he gave Sirius the money and a pile of socks and went back to looking through the crate of electronic equipment. 

“Something’s wrong,” he told Sirius, “I’m beginning to remember missions. Missions I was sent on.”

Sirius looked up from where he was pushing rolls of muggle paper money into woollen socks for convenient storage. “What kind of missions?”

Bucky grimaced. “Mostly assassinations.”

Sirius paused. “That’s pretty awful,” he said finally. 

He looked down, realising that the next bundles of money were a different kind, not British money, and began to put them in a different colour sock. 

“That’s not what’s wrong though, not what’s specifically wrong,” he corrected himself, “I can remember a mission, a mission where I had to do a certain thing then wait for several days to do another thing.”

Sirius paused his stashing to rest his shaking hands and waited for Bucky to continue.

“The date I needed to do the second thing on was in 2009,” Bucky said, “and I remember doing it. I shot a scientist.”

“Are you sure?”

Bucky nodded. “I’m pretty damn certain.”

“What’s the last thing you have remembered?” Sirius asked.

Bucky stared off into space for a while. “It’s hard to get things in the right order,” he murmured. “They...did stuff to me to make me forget, make me act right…”

Sirius just waited, it wasn’t like he hadn’t had a lot of practice at waiting.

“There was a man, on a bridge,” He said, “the one who called me Bucky. I remembered him from somewhere.”

Sirius wanted to push the sock of money into the backpack’s side pocket, but his hand wasn’t doing what he wanted it to and the room seemed to be moving alarmingly. Bucky was still talking but didn’t appear to see him. He managed to tune back into what Bucky was saying about shooting at a black car. 

“What did he do?” He asked.

“Nothing,” Bucky said, “I tried to kill him and he tried not to kill me. I told my handler and...I know I told my handler and that’s the last thing I remember of that time.”

“When?”

Bucky shook his head. “Don’ know, but I know there were cars then that there aren’t now, aren’t...yet? It seems really clear compared to some things I remember.” He thought for a moment. “I was in America,” he added.

“This is definitely England,” Sirius told him, “nineteen ninety...three?” Darkness tunnelled the edges of his vision and he realised he was hanging onto consciousness by a thread.

“I know that, punk,” Bucky said, “I don’t know how I can remember 2009 or later though.”

“Could be a Time-turner.” Sirius’ voice sounded odd, slurred.

“A what? Hey!” 

Bucky was talking to him now, crouching down in front of him, but Sirius couldn’t focus anymore and felt himself slipping sideways.


	3. Chapter 3

When he came round again, he was laying in a bed. It took him a few moments to work out where he was and to realize Bucky was sitting on the bed next to him.

“Hey, don’ move!” Bucky grabbed his wrist and shoulder gently and pushed them back down again. “You’ve got a catheter in your arm, fluids, electrolytes, you ain’t eaten right for too long, then got sick when you started eating again.”

Sirius could not parse the sense from that statement, but he could see a pale line in the edge of his vision and feel something odd around the crook of his elbow.

“Lay still, rest,” Bucky ordered, “this is just gonna take some time.”

Sirius let his eyes fall closed again.

He woke a couple more times; once it was light, the next time it was dark and there was a warm weight next to him. He was vaguely aware of Bucky getting up at some point and washing him and moving around him, but it all felt fuzzy and slightly unreal. 

He finally struggled to a better level of awareness as Bucky was changing his clothes. 

“Nnnngh,” he managed.

Bucky looked up and saw his open eyes. “Hey,” he said, leaning in to look into Sirius’ eyes “can you understand me?”

Sirius’ brow furrowed as he marshalled his thoughts. “Yeah,” he managed to get out “Wha’?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Bucky asked. “You got sick. Happens to people who are starved then eat again.”

Sirius managed to turn his head enough to see that the odd feeling in his arm was a clear tube attached to his arm. His eyes followed the tube up to a bag of liquid which was taped to the wall with wide black strips.

“‘Kay,” Sirius managed to say. “Wha' thi’?” He flicked his eyes at where the tube entered his arm.

“Intravenous fluids,” Bucky told him, “medical feeding straight into the blood. You need to start eating again really slowly, but if you can stay conscious we can start feeding you liquids and then food by mouth.”

Sirius managed to stay awake for a while, propped up and idly listening to the television that had been moved into the bedroom. To his relief, when the bag of liquid was empty Bucky removed the creepy muggle medical tube going into the vein in his arm and started him on sips of the disgusting drink again. 

Whatever Sirius thought about the drink, there was a jug of it made up on the bedside table and Bucky helped him drink a measured amount of it at regular intervals over the next day. Whatever it was, it was apparently working and by the following morning, Sirius was able to stay awake from more than an hour at a time and to sit up, propped up on the pillows.

“I feel gross,” he told Bucky, “and my hair stinks.”

Bucky looked him over. “Yeah, you don’ smell great,” he agreed.

Bucky stripped his clothes, carried him into the bathroom and lifted him into the bath. He helped Sirius prop himself up in the bath and took the shower off its hook on the wall. 

“Electric shower, don’ have to wait for the water to heat up.” 

“How long can we stay here?” Sirius asked, watching Bucky start the water running and test its temperature on his flesh hand as it quickly warmed up.

Bucky’s face screwed up in thought for a moment. “A few days,” he said finally, “no-one here is looking for me, and no-one’s looking for you in the real world.”

Sirius bridled a bit at the ‘real world’ comment, but let it go. “There’ll be a manhunt for me in the wizarding world,” he said, “but I’ve never lived in the muggle world, so I can’t think they’ll be looking for me here.”

“This place has no remote monitoring,” Bucky said, “five weeks of newspapers and post on the mat, so they ain’t doing monthly checks.” He put the shower down in the bath and opened the bathroom cabinet, pulling out a selection of hotel style mini-bottles of shower gel and hair products. “Unless we’re unlucky and they rent it out or come for routine checks on an irregular basis.”

“How likely is that?” Sirius asked. 

“Not very. We’ve got long enough to get cleaned up and work out a plan,” Bucky said. He closed the cupboard and turned back to Sirius. “No razors though.,” he noted in disappointment.

Sirius wasn’t sure he could even wash himself at this point, let alone shave, but just shrugged. He let Bucky wash him down with soap and the shower. His hair had tangled itself into matts again and it took a comb and a whole mini-bottle of conditioner to untangle and then properly clean a decade’s worth of dirt from it. 

When he was done, Bucky wrapped him in a couple of towels, sat him on the lid of the toilet and trimmed his hair and beard with a pair of nail scissors. While Bucky washed himself, Sirius leaned against the wall and dozed; being clean felt amazing and he was only vaguely aware of Bucky pulling some clothes back on him and putting him into the bed again.

It was morning when he woke again and Bucky was holding another glass of fluid up. Sirius managed to pull himself up to a semi-sitting position against the pillows and drank it down obediently. 

“How do you feel?” Bucky asked him, taking the glass back.

“Okay,” Sirius said with a little surprise, “tired.”

Bucky nodded. “Can you remember you said something about a time-turner.”

Sirius thought for a moment. “In the loft, you said you could remember the future.”

Bucky settled himself on the bed next to Sirius. “I can remember acting on specific dates in years that ain’t happened, and cars and technology that don’t exist yet. What’s a time-turner do?”

“A time-turner. Allows you to travel backwards and forwards within your own timeline,” Sirius said. “They’re tightly controlled by the Ministry of Magic in the UK, but you were in Azkaban prison,” he said thoughtfully, “which is run by the Ministry. Would the people who you worked for want to get you away for a long time for some reason? Like 15 years extra time to do something.”

Bucky frowned. “If I was breaking the conditioning, but they needed it to hold for something specific, I guess if they could buy extra time to recondition me…”

Sirius nodded. “That makes sense. So you’re in 2009 and see this man, it starts to break the conditioning, but they need you to do something. If they have magical contacts, corrupt Ministry officials, they could use a time turner to send you back to use the time to recondition you, then push you back forward to the right time, might not even know when you were going back to, they could just push you back a few years and let you live out the time in Azkaban till when they needed you to act.”

Bucky nodded. “I guess it’s plausible,” he agreed, “well, now I know magic exists, anyhow. Leaving me with magic people would mean I don’ come into contact with anyone who knows me”

“And the effect of dementor exposure is to depress people, squash their personality, make them weak or mad,” Sirius added, “several years in Azkaban would probably have worked pretty well to make you controllable again and you wouldn’t affect your own timeline.” Sirius frowned. “The problem is, that the only kind of time turners I know will only send you back in time for up to five hours, otherwise there’s a big risk to the user or to time itself.”

Bucky tapped his metal fingers rhythmically on the glass. “But I guess if I came back from 2009 they coulda invented better ones?”

“That’s true,” Sirius said, “I kind of hope that’s true, otherwise it could be bad for you.”

“How would it mess me up?” Bucky asked.

Sirius spread his hands vaguely. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “I was an auror, a magical police officer, and  _ we _ only covered it in very basic terms. Like I said, using them was very tightly controlled. I know that time magic is really unstable and serious breaches in time can have horrific consequences, like people not getting born who ought to.”

Bucky’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, that’ll mess things up. Do other countries have them?”

“Almost certainly. Almost every country has its own magical community, but whoever it was dealt with you had you sent to Azkaban, which is the British Ministry of Magic.” 

They both sat in silence for a long while before Bucky spoke again. “Well, it’s not like I can actually do anything about it.” He said. “I guess I just have to get on with living.”

Sirius nodded. “If it’s any reassurance,” he offered, “somewhere out there is a you who is doing all the stuff you remember.”

Bucky snorted. “All the stuff I don’t remember, you mean.”

They both laughed grimly. 

xxxoooxxx

He had searched his limited store of memories for how he knew that Sirius was suffering from the effects of eating after starvation, but could not actually remember any specific mission which had - or could have - required him to know these things. The Winter Soldier was not the sort of asset who was sent on rescue missions. Equally, Hydra was not the sort of organisation that usually bothered to rescue people. This meant that it was either from before he was The Soldier, or was related to a very specific and unusual mission he could not yet recall.

He spent most of the time Sirius was asleep running through the memories he had already managed to shake loose, trying to crystallize them in his mind. Everything he could remember he revisited, trying to mine the memories, however vague they were, for the smallest of details. Nothing he was able to remember though, not even the nightmares that woke him in the night, seemed to have any relevance to the current situation.

There was a notebook in one of the drawers in the kitchen, half of its pages torn out, but half still remaining. He started to systematically make notes on each memory, people, clothes worn, vehicles, technology, anything he came into contact with, trying to identify rough dates and locations. The pages were soon filled with scribbled notes, rough sketches of people and buildings, and maps of places he had been. 

It became clear that his history seemed to fall into clear blocks. He had been able to remember interacting with a specific handler on three occasions, all of which were obviously during the 1970s. Another pair of memories, clearly linked by the uniforms and Russian speech of his guards, were somewhere around the late 1950s, possibly early 1960s. His more recent memories seemed more varied in location and language, but he was fairly sure the same handler had appeared in two otherwise unconnected memories of missions.

The exercise also showed him that he spoke at least ten languages. He could remember speaking, and actually identify, English, Russian, French, German, Italian and Romanian. However, he had several memories where he was fluently speaking and comprehending at least another four languages, but was not aware what those languages actually were. He scribbled down all of the things he could remember anyway, in the hope of being able to match it to something else later. 

His ruminations were brought to a close when he ran out of space in the notebook. He took a risk and left Sirius for the half an hour it took to dash out to the nearest corner shop. The shopkeeper was happy to supply him with bread, milk, laundry detergent and a supply of notebooks and pens, as well as directions to the nearest supermarket, but he dared not stay out long while Sirius was so sick. What he would do if Sirius did not get better, or worse still if he died, was not something Bucky allowed himself to contemplate.

xxxoooxxx

Sirius awoke the next day to Bucky shaking him gently awake and handing him another bottle of the disgusting drink. He sat up in bed and made his way through half the bottle as ordered before getting dressed in a new set of muggle clothes. One thing he was incredibly grateful for was that the crates in the loft had held clean socks and underwear. He finally felt closer to his old self when he caught sight of himself, clean and neatly dressed, in the mirrored doors of the wardrobe.

He was still feeling weak, but Bucky was insistent that there were things they needed to buy and that he needed photographs of Sirius. Bucky had apparently been out briefly the previous day while he was asleep and established the location of a supermarket that would provide whatever they needed and was conveniently on a nearby bus route. 

Sirius's walking pace was very slow, but the promised bus stop was indeed very close and dropped them off right outside the supermarket. Bucky sat him in a ‘photo booth’ just inside the main doors, which produced two sets of four small muggle photos of each of them. While they waited for the machine to print the photos, Bucky bought and flicked through a muggle newspaper. 

“We need a vehicle,” he told Sirius, “secondhand, paid cash. Can you drive?”

Sirius nodded. “Not legally,” he admitted, “Lily taught me.”

Photos tucked away in a pocket, Bucky left Sirius sitting on the bench and wandered off to do some shopping. Sirius leaned back against the wall, trying to stay awake and watched as muggles paid for their shopping at weird rolling counters that beeped every time the shop assistant moved an item.

As well as food he recognized, Bucky came back with bags full of muggle toiletries, boxes of the rehydration salts he had been forced to drink, tubs of vitamins, and four large jars of peanut butter.

“Why these?” Sirius asked. 

“Re-feeding and easily digestible extra calories in protein and fat form,” Bucky told him. “You look like a drug addict. You’ve been on a semi-starvation diet. Reintroducing normal food too fast can harm you, ‘s why you’re drinking the electrolytes.”

Sirius scowled, then shrugged.

“You’ll eat this to help bulk you up,” Bucky informed him, “and keep drinking the rehydration salts to keep your electrolytes up.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Sirius said. 

“You don’ need to,” Bucky said, “it’s what you’ve already been drinking.”

“Just do what you tell me?” Sirius grumbled.

“Yep,” Bucky said, “just eat what I tell you for the next few days, punk. You’ll get back onto real food real slow, a few days.”

“Why all this?” Sirius asked. 

“People who are starved can get sick when they reintroduce real food. Your body does weird things when it thinks it’s starving.”

“How do you even know all this?” Sirius asked him. 

“Don’ know,” Bucky said, “I don’ have a memory attached to this information.”

“Are you sure it’s true?” Sirius looked down at the boxes in the metal shopping trolley.

“Worked when you collapsed,” Bucky told him flatly, “you can still walk, must be doing something right.”

xxxoooxxx

The next four days were less than pleasant. The single trip out to the supermarket had put Sirius on his back for the whole of the next day. Bucky had put Sirius on a strict schedule of drinking measured quantities of either an orange fizzy drink or the rehydration salts and taking the vitamin pills, only slowly letting him eat food, starting with spoonfuls of peanut butter. Sirius realised he could quite easily begin to hate peanut butter. 

On the third day, Bucky gave him wholemeal toast with his peanut butter and it was heavenly. He was also allowed to take a walk around the garden and sit in the sun for a while, now Bucky had established the neighbours were out at work all day. However, it was five days before Bucky let him stop drinking the rehydration salts and he had strict instructions to continue taking the vitamin pills every morning until they ran out. 

Sirius spent most of the time in the living room dozing or watching television, while Bucky did things with pieces of paper and the photos. That was when he wasn’t just staring into space. There were long periods where Bucky almost seemed to turn off, although Sirius estimated using the clock on the mantelpiece that these were decreasing in length. 

On the sixth day they left the safe house and took a bus towards the city centre until they found a cafe open early for breakfast. The cafe was full of patrons and they had to wait for a couple of minutes before a table became free, quite close to the counter at the back. Bucky seemed a little confused by the weirdly shiny menu. Sirius guessed this was another of the weird gaps in Bucky’s memory and knowledge, he could go into a muggle shop and buy everything Sirius needed to start eating again, but blanked when given a menu. 

A woman in an apron came over, cleared the previous patrons’ crockery from the table and gave it a good wipe over while Sirius scanned the menu.

“Two pots of tea, two porridges and two scrambled egg on wholemeal toast,” he ordered.

He would like to have ordered the full English breakfast, but was fairly certain that his Azkaban weakened digestive system would just throw it all up again, at least with this he could eat some and Bucky would finish the rest. The woman took their order with a cheery smile. 

She soon came back with the tea and some complementary toast with an apology that their food might take a little while as they were busy. Sirius brushed away her apology with a smile and few murmured words of reassurance that they were not in a rush today, as she put two pots of tea, milk, a rack of toast and some butter and jam on the table. 

Sirius poured himself a cup of tea with milk and sugar, then watched curiously as Bucky stirred the tea in the teapot, poured himself a very strong cup of black tea and stirred a spoonful of jam and a sugar lump into it.

“Is that a muggle thing?” Sirius asked him. 

Bucky blinked for a moment as if he had only just realized what he had done. 

“Russian,” he said, “it’s Russian style tea.”

Sirius looked at the cup in interest. “With jam?”

Bucky nodded. “I spent…a lot of my ‘soldier’ time there.”

He sipped the tea and gave Sirius a small smile, obviously satisfied with the taste. “You wanna try it?” He held the cup out to Sirius.

Sirius took the cup out of Bucky’s hand and took a small sip. The bitterness of the strong tea floated over the sweetness of the sugar and the slight blackcurrant taste of the jam. 

“Surprisingly good,” he said, handing the cup back to Bucky. He took half a slice of the toast and pushed the rest towards Bucky.

In the end, the porridge arrived not that long after Bucky had finished the toast and a second cup of tea and the scrambled eggs some time later, as the breakfast rush began to empty out. Sirius was grateful that the food was well spaced out. He ate half of the porridge and managed most of his scrambled eggs but Bucky ate the rest for him.

As the final customers drifted out of the cafe, Sirius let his mind drift. Even this excursion had tired him and he was happy to just relax as Bucky worked through the classified advertisements in an abandoned newspaper.

Finally, Bucky looked up. “I need to go out without you.” 

“Why?”

“Buy a vehicle.” Bucky said. “But you’re tired and still look sick. Too memorable, too likely people will think you’re a drug addict.”

Sirius sighed. “We’re in here,” he countered.

“No other trail here,” Bucky said. “We’re buying a recognizable, registered vehicle.”

“Alright,” Sirius acquiesced, “what do you want me to do?”

“Write down a list of locations to look for your nephew and the rat. Make a list of stuff you need to do your wizard thing.”

Sirius frowned at him. “Why are you doing all this for me?”

Bucky shrugged. “You rescued me.” He snorted. “And you’re the only person I actually know at the moment.”

Sirius nodded. 

“What are you going to do when you kill the rat?” Bucky asked him.

Sirius took in a deep breath and held it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“Is there any way you can use him to clear your name?”

Sirius shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Think about it.” Bucky advised him. 


End file.
